


Namque Pauci Libertatem

by BuggreAlleThis



Category: Ancient History RPF, Ancient Roman Religion & Lore, Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Ancient Rome, Bona Dea Scandal, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Gen, M/M, Male Pronouns, Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Non-Sexual Slavery, Pining, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Pre-Slash, Religion, Rituals, Siege of Jerusalem, Slavery, Vestal Virgins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuggreAlleThis/pseuds/BuggreAlleThis
Summary: Rome, 62 BCE. Crawly spots Aziraphale in the guise of a Vestal Virgin, and an important party is gatecrashed with disastrous consequences.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 204





	Namque Pauci Libertatem

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be the first chapter of a new work, but I thought it could probably work as a oneshot. I'll link back to it when I publish the next fic, but it can be read alone - it'll just share some themes in common. 
> 
> I fancied doing something in Republican Rome, a hundred years before the Oyster Date, and the Bona Dea (Good Goddess) scandal of 62-61 BCE seemed like a fun option! It's not quite a crossover with Colleen McCullough's _Caesar's Women_ , but owes a great deal to it, especially for the layout of the Domus Publica.
> 
> No major warnings apply, but there's depiction of slavery, as one would expect, and very brief mentions of rape, abortion, infanticide, and torture. Again, as one would expect from Ancient Rome.

**Namque pauci libertatem, pars magna iustos dominos volunt.**

_Few desire freedom; the greater part desire fair masters._

― Sallust, Histories IV.69.18

Aziraphale rarely took a female form, being a creature of habit above all, but to be perfectly honest he didn’t look very different. A little smoother around the face, perhaps, and presumably under the veil and crimson woollen sausages his hair was longer, but he was still all soft curves and blushes and easy smiles. He was very pretty whatever human sex he took on. Very sweet. Disgusting, really.

He was wearing a white suffibulum edged in purple and fastened with a brooch of gold and pearls. Beneath that was the scarlet infula, like a turban made from rolled sausages of wool, and then finally Aziraphale’s own white curls, twisted back around a white vitta.

Only a handful of women in Rome dressed like that, like brides without the flame-coloured veil. Crawly laughed until tears came to his eyes, and when he blinked them away Aziraphale was staring at him with his arms akimbo in a very non-Vestal stance, right down to his thick woollen socks and cork-soled sandals.

“Oi!” someone said, digging his elbow into Crawly’s side. “You be respectful to the Virgin!”

“Oh, I will. I’ll go and apologise,” he said, and approached Aziraphale with a shit-eating grin. “Salve!”

Aziraphale sighed. “Salve. I should have known you’d be here, with the stories I’ve been hearing.”

“It’s a fun city, isn’t it? Something happening every day. So. Vestal Virgin!”

Aziraphale didn’t reply to him, and turned instead to his attendants. “This is a cousin from the countryside. Melissa, could you please go ahead and ask the Pontifex’s lady mother whether she requires more milk for tonight?”

“Domina,” the slave-girl said, “It’s the praetor’s wife who’s organising the Event.”

“In name, my dear, in name. It’s Domina Aurelia who’ll know what’s needed. Horatia will stay as my chaperone – we’ll meet you at the Porticus Margaritaria.”

Melissa went ahead, and the younger slave-girl looked pleased to be so trusted as a chaperone.

“She doesn’t speak Greek,” Aziraphale said in that language.

“And presumably not Hebrew.”

“But _I’m_ not meant to know Hebrew either. Even Greek is a little suspect for conversation.” Something in his face softened. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Crawly shifted uncomfortably. “Got discorporated at Cannae.”

“Oh!” said Aziraphale, and the bastard had the cheek to look genuinely… concerned? “Oh, dear. Yes, that was an awful one. I probably shouldn’t say that I’m sorry, but… But here you are now.”

“All limbs present and correct,” Crawly confirmed, relieved to move on. “What’s the event then?”

“It’s the Bona Dea festival. Horatia here is helping me to find the last necessary bits – _I’m sorry, my dear, his Latin is quite terrible, I’ll be done in just a minute, telling him I can’t stay to catch up, the bumpkin doesn’t even know about the Bona Dea’s night!_ – the Bona Dea is being sent to sleep for the winter.”

“She’s the one with the snakes, right?”

“That’s right. But no snakes tonight. No living, reptile snakes, at least. Not your kind of snakes.”

Crawly’s eyes lit up. “How intriguing.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask yet!

“You’re going to ask if you can come, and I’m sorry, Crawly, but no.”

“My cognomen is Croceus,” Crawly said, more to distract Aziraphale than out of pique. That was the best way to get something out of Aziraphale: change conversational tracks until the angel fell into a tizzy and forgot what he was meant to be forbidding.

It worked. “Croceus – oh, that’s very nice,” Aziraphale said, smiling again. Aziraphale liked words, and flowers, and shit like that, so Crawly knew he’d like that cognomen. _Like a crocus. Yellow as saffron_.

“Thanks. So, tonight?”

“Tonight – no! No, I said no.”

“Come on. We haven’t seen each other in aaaages. Need to catch up. I want to hear everything that happened after Alexander bit it.”

“No, tonight is extremely important, Crocee. It’s an actual mission.”

Aziraphale looked shifty. Crawly scented blood. “Heaven’s interested in what the Roman matrons are up to?”

“They want updated reports on pagan mysteries – they think it’s all down to your lot interfering.”

“They usually just make it up themselves. Go on, Aziraphale, let me come.”

“Azemia,” Aziraphale said. “My cognomen is Azemia. And no. Sorry. Besides, it’s well-born ladies only for the winter ceremony. If you want to have some fun you’ll have to wait until May.”

“You’re not well-born. You weren’t even born.”

Aziraphale was looking more and more uncomfortable. “I fudged their memories a bit. One of the serving virgins died and then… made a miraculous recovery.”

“That’s _identity theft_ ,” Crawly crowed in delight. “All to get a cushy position as a pagan priestess. Well, well, well."

“She’s not using it anymore, and I’m hardly going to damage her reputation, am I?”

“Depends what you get up to at this ‘pagan mystery’ tonight. I notice you gave her a new cognomen.”

“She didn’t use one, and otherwise I just kept forgetting who I was meant to be when they called me. Look, I have to go.”

“Lots of pagan flames to attend to? Got to get ready for your orgy?”

“It’s _not_ an orgy! And no, actually. It’s mostly archive work – we look after all the wills, write up the laws, that kind of thing. I thought it was the best place for learning how the place works.”

“That, and the Vestals can _do magic_.” Crawly wriggled his fingers. “I heard that you can make runaway slaves freeze.”

“We can, actually. It must have been a gift one of your lot gave the first priestesses.” Aziraphale looked smug. “Of course, if there’s the slightest lisp or mispronunciation by any of us, it doesn’t work. What a shame.”

“You soft-hearted thing, you,” Crawly said, impressed despite himself. “Sabotage, angel! A new skill, well done!”

Aziraphale wriggled in happiness, and his awful mischievous little smile did nasty things to Crawly’s stomach. “That’s not even the best thing,” he said, dropping his voice conspiratorially. “When I’m out and about any criminal I see gets an automatic pardon, and any slave I touch is automatically freed. I try to do a few rounds of the forum every day, duties permitting.”

Crawly made a mocking moue of disapproval. “Surely criminals should be punished?”

“No, that’s your side’s job. Heaven’s policy is mercy.”

The amusement slid off Crawly’s face. “Is it, now? Must be a new policy.”

Aziraphale at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Well, um. Voices for and against. Look, I have to run – it wasn’t entirely awful to see you.” Aziraphale’s eyes widened at his own daring, and he switched back to Latin. “Come on, Horatia, we’ve dallied long enough – vale, Crocee.”

Crawly watched Aziraphale stalk off, young girl in tow. Suddenly it all made sense. Crawly guessed that Aziraphale had made the case to Heaven that a very suspicious secret cult with lots of _snakes_ involved was operating in Rome, but it was well-born women only, so he was going to have to take on a new identity, purely to infiltrate it and write up a report, shame he’d have to fanny about tending a fire for a while but that was all harmless enough, and encouraged chastity and duty and all that stuff besides. Vestal virgins were educated, could own property, got a pension once their duties were complete. Yes, one was buried alive every hundred years or so for doing the deed, but in general terms they were probably a net good.

And then Aziraphale got to swan around getting handsy with slaves and peering around for anyone on their way to be executed. Sneaky bugger.

It was a shame he _had_ to be sneaky to be kind, but that was Heaven for you.

He was curious now about the Bona Dea festival. He had a personal interest, after all, in cults where snakes were involved.

And as pretty as Aziraphale looked taking a female form, Crawly had much more practice, and looked far better besides.

*

Crawly’s hired litter made its way by torchlight up the Via Sacra towards the Domus Publica. There hadn’t been a night of the Bona Dea at the house of the Pontifex Maximus for decades, and the incurable show-off Julius Caesar had gone all out with the decorations, even if he wasn’t allowed to darken his own door until the next day.

The advantage of conjuring one’s clothing was that one could automatically be the most expensively dressed person in any room. Crawly’s tunica was two layers of silk, violet over crimson, and over that, he wore a scarlet silk stola, embroidered with gold and glittering beads of jet. A ruby the size of a strawberry was nestled between his breasts, connecting the thick golden chains winding around his body. In deference to the December night he wore a silken palla as well, black shot with the deepest red.

Gold snakes twined up his arms; another, scaled with carnelians, wound loosely around his neck. From each ear hung a shower of pearls. He’d painted his face with _tasteful_ amounts of carmine and stibium; the adjective could not be applied to everyone in the vestibule, he thought with a malicious smile. With a wave of his hand the slaves bore the litter away, and he went to greet the hostess.

Such was the solemnity of the occasion that the guests were even allowed to enter by the main doors – vast, tall bronze things showing the story of Cloelia. Two women were greeting them in the vestibule with its curving ramps; one a Vestal who wasn’t Aziraphale, and the other a beautiful young woman in an eye-wateringly expensive dress.

The second peered suspiciously into the face of everyone she spoke to. Maybe she was short-sighted, but her eyes certainly widened at the sight of the ruby between Crawly’s breasts. He smiled, showing his fangs, and for once making no effort to disguise his eyes. “I am here to ssoothe the Good Goddess to ssleep,” he hissed.

The hostess – this must be famous Caesar’s famous wife – went white. “Aurelia?” she called, and a severe-looking matron hurried down the left hand-ramp.

This was the woman to whom Aziraphale had given the milk-order. Crawly beamed. “Good evening. I’m here for the celebration.”

Caesar’s mother was as pale as her daughter-in-law. She wordlessly held out a hand in a gesture of welcome.

“Thankss.”

Crawly had never been in a villa as posh as this one; when in Rome, he tended to favour the Suburra. Mosaics and frescoes everywhere – boughs of greenery – lamps hung in the hundreds, making the crowds of women glitter and sparkle. Crawly wound his way between them until he came to the main peristyle: full of statues, Leucippus marbles and Strongylion bronzes, and a beautiful marble pool. Caesar had covered all the grills and windows and even the peristyles with fabric dyed with saffron, to preserve the mystery from any prying eyes on the Via Nova above.

The air was thick with excitement. A slave-girl bearing a platter of sausages spiced with pepper and cardamom was quivering with it. Crawly could feel it in her: the knowledge that she was tempted to do something very, very wicked – that she would have her freedom and a whole heavy purse if she just broke one little rule…

_Do it,_ Crawly took a moment to whisper into her mind. He did some of his best work at parties. _It won’t hurt anyone. Rules are so silly. They’re for silly people who don’t know any better. You’re cleverer than that. Go on._

The slave looked around for witnesses and placed her tray on a citrus-wood table. Crawly popped one of the little sausages into his mouth as he watched her try to shuffle around the crowds of guests.

He spotted Aziraphale, a pillar of white homespun in a sea of dyed silk, and slithered over. “Hullo.”

“Craw- Crocea!” Aziraphale said, catching up quickly. “What on earth-“

Crawly shoved a woman out of the chair next to Aziraphale, and bared his fangs when she tried to object. “Wasn’t going to miss this. What are we drinking?” He snapped his fingers at a slave-girl. Even the musicians were all female, he noticed.

“Milk,” Aziraphale said primly. “As you’re here… Who did you say you were?”

“Didn’t. They must have liked my eyes.”

The slave-girl hurried over to them, carrying two cups; she handed the delicate coloured glass to Aziraphale, and a gruesome heavy stone thing to Crawly with a low bow.

Crawly looked at it in confusion. Two handles, much thicker and cruder than Aziraphale’s pretty little glass. It was grey, with seams of green and purple running through it.

Aziraphale tutted. “Well, really.”

“What is it?”

“Murrine. Fluorite. It comes from Persia. That’ll be the best cup in the house. You _did_ impress them.”

“Only what I’m due,” Crawly said. “What’s so special about it? Oi, oi, girl. Wine – unmixed – for me and the Vestal.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s- I can’t take you anywhere. She means milk, my dear. From the pure honey-pot.”

“Yes, domina,” the girl said, and trotted away.

Crawly sneered, and waved the ugly cup around. “I didn’t dress up like this to drink _milk_ , angel.”

“I said you shouldn’t come,” Aziraphale said. He was smirking. “Wine is taboo for Roman ladies, you know. No respectable woman would ever drink wine.”

The slave-girl came back with a large jug and poured amber-coloured wine into each of their cups.

Crawly raised his eyebrows.

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale. “See? Milk.” He tasted it. “Falernian milk as well. One can always trust Aurelia. Yours will taste different, though, from the murrine. It’s covered all over with myrrh, I’ve heard, because the mineral’s so soft.”

The strange cup added a strong taste to the wine. Crawly didn’t know whether he liked it. “Want a taste?”

“Oh, yes please!” Aziraphale said, and readily swapped their cups. “Oh, I like that. Apparently you can _eat_ it.”

“What, the cup? Or myrrh?”

“Both, but I meant the cup.” Aziraphale tried scraping at it with his fingernail. “Are you _really_ just here out of curiosity?”

“’Course. So,” Crawly said. “Where’s the snakes?”

“No snakes tonight. Or, almost,” Aziraphale said, with a little smile. “No reptilian ones, at least. The snakes are the whips that’ll be used later.”

Crawly’s jaw dropped. “ _Whips?_ That’s a bit kinky, angel.”

“No, they’re straight hide, and they’re bad enough like that! I’ll do what I can to prevent the worst of the scarring. That’s what the milk’s for. Analgesic.”

“Didn’t think they had it in them,” Crawly said. He decided to deploy his usual interrogational tactic of quickly changing the subject in the hope of startling Aziraphale into honesty. “What does the cognomen mean?”

“I-“ Aziraphale blushed; unfortunately, the saffron tent gave all the guests a look of jaundice. “Nothing. It means nothing.”

“Did you have another appraisal?”

“There are very few words in Latin which include a zayin. Or a zeta. Or whatever they call it in their frightful language. Zod? It doesn’t matter.”

“You could always have gone with Albina. Classic, really. Very appropriate. Instead you make up one in Greek… ‘No punishment’. So, does it mean _unpunished_ , or _undeserving of punishment_?”

Aziraphale glared at him.

Crawly grinned. “You know what that’s called, angel? Passive aggression.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever. It’s an oxymoron.” Aziraphale sniffed, and pointedly looked away, towards the rest of the party. Aurelia was hovering, eyes on Crawly when she could spare a moment, ordering servants hither and thither with the honey-pots or trays covered in sweetmeats and delicacies.

Crawly tasted the air with his snake’s tongue, and watched with amusement as the stern matron went running. “It means you’re upset about something and you can’t say what.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips and tried to look haughty. “The cognomen just means _harmless_ , all right? It just means that I’m not here to punish anyone. Something nice and silly. How everyone thinks of me anyway. Including you.”

“Well,” Crawly said. “Sometimes. Sometimes you can be a bitch.” Aziraphale looked stunned, and Crawly laughed at him. “And it’s not that. I can always tell when you’re lying, angel, you’re no good at it.” He thought back over the last few years. “Judah?”

Aziraphale crumbled. “There wasn’t a lot I could do!” he hissed in anguish. “My priority was the protect the Temple, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus are as bad as each other, and Pompey’s just something else altogether. Alexander without any of the sensitivity and just as much ego. But Judah’s officially under Gabriel’s supervision, obviously, and he took it as a great personal blow. I told him, I’m sorry, but the Romans really are to be watched out for. Any one of them would destroy the Temple in a day if they thought it would bring them a strategically placed grain of sand.” Aziraphale’s breath shuddered out of him, and he drained the murrine cup in a mouthful he couldn’t have properly tasted. “He entered the Temple. He entered the Qodesh HaQodeshim.”

“Fuck,” Crawly said. “Yeah, I can see why Gabriel’d be pissed.”

“What should I have _done_? I managed to persuade him not to _loot_ it; he let us cleanse it and resume the usual the _next day_ , but Gabriel thinks I ought to have killed him for it. Preferably before he could profane it. But what then? His army had cut through twelve thousand of us like a knife through water. I’ve never _killed_ anyone, and good Lord, killing Pompey would have just sent his soldiers on a rampage through the entire city! They wouldn’t have left a single child alive. They adore him.”

Aziraphale wasn’t wearing a suffibulum tonight – just the infula, and his strictly plaited braids wrapped around his head like a crown of white-gold. It didn’t suit him, Crawly thought as he watched the angel sigh, and look down morosely at the mosaics.

“I got him out of the Temple in a day. He didn’t set up any statues. He didn’t loot it. He didn’t destroy it! And he made his soldiers stop killing and raping and- I don’t know what more I could have done. I did everything I could and it’s never… I don’t-“ He heaved another sigh, and visibly tried to shake his sadness off himself. Definitely not _unpunished_ , then. _Undeserving of punishment_. “Anyway, I’ve been assigned here, to write a report on their religious beliefs. Let the punishment fit the crime.”

“If this is the whole of your punishment then it’s not too bad,” Crawly said. Aziraphale looked at him like a kicked puppy. “Come on, let’s get more of that milk before you start getting too maudlin. You can use the ugly cup.”

Aziraphale looked a bit more cheerful at that, at least. Crawly beckoned the slave-girl with the honey-pot over.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said when she’d filled his cup. “You’re one of the borrowed slaves, yes?” He held out his hand. “If you’d like.”

“Oh!” the girl said, looking down at his hand. “Oh, um, no, thank you, domina. My mistress is very good to me. Thank you.”

“All right. Well, when you go to fill the honey-pot, if there’s anyone in the kitchens who isn’t happy you send them up to me, all right?”

“Yes, domina, I will,” the slave-girl said.

Crawly watched her go. “Do many reject the offer?”

“At events like this, yes. In the forum, no. Young thing like that, Roman accent, she’s probably a verna. Born a slave. Been in the same house all her life. Protected by law as a child of the house… No, I can understand why.”

“I can’t,” Crawly said. “Why anyone would rather be a slave. How anyone could.”

“If it’s that or starve? Some people sell themselves into slavery, if they see a good opportunity. Or if you’re born to it and it’s all you know… That’s why the citizens think they can treat them as they like. Anyone who’d rather be a slave than die free deserves to be one. These Romans can be very harsh. Oh, that murrine-taste is nice.” Aziraphale stuck his tongue out to touch the rim of the cup experimentally. “You and I, we’re like her, of course.”

“Speak for yourself, angel,” Crawly snarled. “Some of us rebelled against the old benevolent slavery, didn’t we?”

“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale said. “I forgot. No one orders you around anymore.”

Crawly felt anger rising up his throat like lava. “That’s different!” he spat, and searched his head for a reason. “They’re going to die anyway! _I’m_ not.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer, when a scream rang through the peristyle. The music stopped instantly, as did the talk; every woman looked as one towards the eastern side of the house, to the Pontifex’s tablinum.

“We’re profaned! We’re defiled!” The stern matron Aurelia emerged into the peristyle, wild as a Maenad, dragging a slim young man with her. In her free hand she clutched a blond wig.

There was a dreadful silence, and then mayhem. Many women fled; slaves threw down honey-pots and trays and ran. Two women lunged forward with knives out to kill the man and had to be held back.

The musicians wailed. A flautist tore her dress open and beat the ground, screaming fit to wake the dead. “No! No! My baby!” One of her friends tried to comfort her.

“See!” Aurelia shouted, voice cutting through the cries. “Publius Clodius! He has violated the Bona Dea! Witness! Witness!”

There were shouts all around. “Blind him! Kill him! Kill him! Tear out his eyes!”

The young man, looking ridiculous in his expensive dress and smeared make-up, managed to throw Aurelia off and make a run for it. He ran into the Pontifex’s rooms, followed by half the women. The ones who weren’t prostrate in grief.

“Domina,” one weeping woman said, coming up to Aziraphale and holding out a lovely blue veil. “My poor lady – please, please, don’t look…”

“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale, and wound it around his face. “Ecastor! Such sacrilege!” He stood up, and Crawly made himself useful by leading him out to the colonnade and became invisible once they were in the shadows.

When there, Aziraphale peeked out at the carnage in front of them. He reached up and pulled a large amount of power down from Heaven; he spread his fingers, and Crawly felt it fly out over the whole assembly of shrieking, crying women.

“What was that?” he whispered.

“I’m making them all infertile for three months,” Aziraphale whispered back. “We should be able to redo the rite before then.”

“Infertile? Why?”

“If any of them are pregnant they’re going to abort the baby. The Vestals oversee the Bona Dea’s gardeners. There’s a field of diseased rye by her shrine. It’s not fool-proof, but it usually works. I think most of the women here will take it whether they’re pregnant or not, just in case.”

“Seriously? What if it doesn’t work?”

“The rye won’t work if they’re too far along. If it _is_ too late they’ll expose the infant when it’s born. I’ll do what I can for those, but they’ll kill any child conceived before the rites can be completed properly.”

“Shit.” Crawly felt a nasty squirmy feeling in his gut. “I didn’t know they cared that much about it. I thought this was just an excuse to get drunk… Don’t the babies they leave out tend to get picked up anyway?”

“These won’t.” Aziraphale already looked exhausted. “They’re all cursed. I’ll get as many as I can out – outside the city. Some of the Jews or Celts might take them in. Anyone who doesn’t know or care about the Bona Dea. I’ll pay them.”

“I’ll help,” said Crawly. Aziraphale looked at him in surprise. “What? Innocent babies dying? More souls straight to Heaven. Need to give them a chance to grow up into sinful, wicked buggers.”

Aziraphale gave him a small, sad smile. “Right. Of course.”

Crawly nodded. “Right. I’ll stay in Rome for a bit. Co-ordinate.”

Aziraphale looked at him in such surprise. “Oh, Crawly. That’s ever so good-“

“Fuck off.”

The flood of women back into the peristyle indicated that Clodius had got away. “Where are his sisters?” Aurelia shouted. “Pompeia! Terentia, you find them, and Fulvia! Azemia, Fabia’s distraught, Licinia’s looking after her – can you consult the Books?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, and Crawly could hear the relief in his voice. Consulting books was Aziraphale’s speciality.

“You were speaking to… And she’s gone. Gone! We truly are cursed, then,” Aurelia said. She suddenly looked haggard, and the lines around her mouth deepened. “All the _babies_ – oh, the corpses will fill the streets to be eaten by dogs!”

“It might not come to that,” Aziraphale said. “It doesn’t need to be a grand affair. Try to send word out to all the guests that they mustn’t make any rash decisions based on this; we might be able to salvage things.”

Aurelia shook her head. Around them, the screams had died away to moaning and weeping. “No. The rites have been profaned. We have the slave who let him in; we’ll soon find out if he had accomplices. Ecastor! Thank the Goddess you’ve kept your head at least, Azemia – find out how we can expiate this!”

“Of course – right away.” Aziraphale fled the scene, followed by Crawly. “Poor, foolish girl! Oh, God. What was she _thinking_?”

“What’ll they do to her?” Crawly said softly.

“Torture her. A slave’s testimony isn’t considered trustworthy unless it’s under torture,” Aziraphale said, wringing his hands. “She needs to confess – she needs to- Oh, they’ll kill her anyway. Could you look up the- I could try to- I don’t know what to do, Crawly!”

It was so typical of Aziraphale. If Crawly wanted to, he could destroy this angel. He could lead him merrily tripping down a road to oblivion. But underneath all the rote answers, when push came to shove, Aziraphale turned to _him_ for reassurance and help.

It should have annoyed him. Or it should have made him gleeful, about how gullible the feather-brained idiot was. How trusting.

Instead it softened all his joints. His heart beat more slowly. Something deep, something deliberately ignored – that something rejoiced that a single being in all the cosmos thought he wasn’t irredeemable. That there was something in him other than evil and pain. That spoke to him like… Not like a friend. But something close to that, sometimes, in moments like this.

Once, he’d been sarcastic in his reassurance. Now he seized upon the opportunity. “Look up the ritual thing. I’d never be able to find it, let alone read it, would I?” Crawly said gently. “You couldn’t have foreseen this, angel. Do what you can. That’s all you can do.”

“What if it was the girl who didn’t want to be freed? They couldn’t torture her then, I should have-“

“No. She said no. And it’s not her, I saw her running out with her mistress. I’ll do something about the slave.”

“Thank you – _thank you_ ,” Aziraphale said, and he pressed his hands to Crawly’s invisible ones. Even in the chill December night, the angel’s hands were so _warm_ … “God, I hate this place. I hate it.”

The emotion in Aziraphale’s voice sent a chill down Crawly’s spine. He was about to ask what he meant – if he meant the Domus Publica, or Rome. Or Earth. But the angel was gone, into the archive room which smelt of dust and the acrid piss-and-lime stench of really expensive Asian parchment.

Crawly moved silently back into the atrium. Most of the guests were being herded out of the Domus Publica. He ignored them.

He found the women in the tablinum he’d not yet been into. It was the slave who’d had the tray of sausages, as he’d known deep down that it would be. She’d been stripped, but her skin was as yet unmarked.

“Pompeia Sulla!” she was screaming, with a Greek accent. “They were going to meet upstairs! She told me to do it!”

“Find her!” Aurelia snapped to one of the witnesses. “Where’s the mastix?”

The slave screamed. Crawly snapped his fingers and stopped her heart.

He picked up one of the jars of wine on his way out.


End file.
